Telehealth Serves The Neediest

April 6, 2016 by InTouch Health

Yenagoa, Nigeria, is about a 7-hour drive from Nigeria’s largest city, Lagos – and many of its residents weren’t able to get high-quality specialty care close to home. That is until the InTouch 7 (previously, RP-7) arrived.

Thanks to a grant from the Sonoma West Medical Center Foundation (SWMC), the Sebastopol, Calif., Sunrise Rotary Club and InTouch Health, who donated the robot and connectivity services, there’s now an InTouch 7 on-site at Federal Medical Center in Yenagoa. The Sonoma West grant also paid for six Nigerian doctors to travel to SWMC in Sebastopol for eight days of intensive InTouch 7 training.

The Federal Medical trainees can now consult easily with colleagues in California (and vice versa). SWMC Medical Director, Dr. James Gude, also taught the visiting group how to set up grand rounds training sessions so the students can return the favor and train others in Nigeria.

This type of transcontinental collaboration, though not yet common, is helping to save lives in some unlikely settings. Fast Company reports that Dr. Rogy Masri recently used telehealth technology to make a difficult diagnosis at a Syrian refugee camp in northern Lebanon.

The Syrian patient presented with an incredibly red lesion on one hand. The patient was suffering no pain or itching, yet the condition never improved. So Dr. Masri posted a photo on a telehealth app called Figure1 – and within hours, internal medicine resident Yusuf Dimas at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver offered a diagnosis of Leishmaniasis, which soon proved correct.

The World Health Organization estimates that at least 400 million people worldwide lack access to basic healthcare – and some organizations feel that the actual number might be as high as 1.3 billion people.

By delivering expert care to underserved communities around the world, telehealth is making access more timely and affordable – especially for those most desperate for that care.